Musical Car Seats

Tessa and Annie have been using their feet to tell us something for a little while now. (Yes, their feet are obviously adorable, but that apparently was not the message here.) The message was, "We are one now, and we are way too tall and heavy for our infant car seats!! Just look at our feet hanging off the ends of these seats!!"


Here, Annie presents Exhibit A:

Message received.

We spent the better part of Saturday cleaning the van and rejiggering our car seat situation. Like all tasks most people might expect to be able to complete in a reasonable time frame, in our little world with four small kids, this took all day and necessitated a playpen and lots of sidewalk chalk in the driveway, and then a picnic on our front lawn. Simple things are complex here.

First, some last smiles in these seats before we shoved them into the no-man's storage land underneath our house:

I present our newly arranged minivan full of four big-girl car seats, and complete with four big girls (boo hoo!). The babies graduated directly from their infant seats to the Cadillacs of the big-kid car seat world: Britax, and pink to boot. What more could two one-year-olds ask for? These seats were given up without a second thought by Megan and Bridget, who relocated to some cheap seats that came from ... you guessed it: Daddy's car! Although these Cosco Scenera seats represent the other end of the car seat spectrum ($35 from Target compared to the $200+ we spent on each Britax), all that really matters is that these seats were in Daddy's car, and they are obviouly superior and more desirable.

This arrangement gets a thumbs-up from Megan especially, who can now easily tickle the baby sitting next to her - a bonus :) The tickling doesn't produce the desired effect when said baby is sleeping, though. And, speaking of sleeping, the best indicator that everyone's comfy with the new set-up? Kids sleeping in their car seats!

The new layout works perfectly and everyone's happy. (I'm really happy we didn't buy two new Britax seats! Just another example of the kids liking the cheap stuff we have laying around!) Three seats fit better across the back than I thought they would, mostly because the Cosco seats are a little bit narrower. We decided to have the babies sit facing forward since they're at the 1 year and 20 pound mark (okay, so Annie probably has a couple ounces to go, but who's counting?), and they're so much happier that way! We now have one empty captain's chair in the middle row, which we've stowed in the floor of the van to gain some space. It's really easy to crawl in and buckle everyone up now, without having to squeeze behind car seats, and we have a huge space to change diapers, or I can sit there and nurse the babies if necessary. Of course, our little potty has a home in this area too :) This may be the most important seat in the van!

With every change comes a new set of challenges. In this case, without the infant car seats, I'm trying to figure out a system to get the babies out of the house and into the car safely, and vice versa. When they were in their seats, they were heavy, but contained. I could carry both and a couple of bags if necessary. I could set one seat on the lawn while I plopped the other in the van. Now, I'm lucky if I can manage to press the button to open the van door with a squirming baby on each hip. And, once the door's open, I have to set a baby down and make sure she doesn't topple out while I buckle up her sister. Forget the diaper bag or two other kids that either want to be carried or need to be dragged from one location to another. I figure this will be hard for a couple of months until they're walking, and then I can walk out to the car with all of my little ducks walking behind me :)

Lastly, just becasue she's so cute: Megan all smiles after preschool today.